What are beliefs?

We create beliefs to anchor our understanding of the world around us and so, once we have formed a belief, we will tend to
persevere with that belief.

Beyond belief

The corollary of our definition of belief is that if we know
something to be true, then it is more than a belief. The tricky question now is
'How do we know that something is always true?' Just because in our
experience it has always been true, it doesn't necessarily follow that it
will continue to be true.

We usually belief that things will happen as they have previously happened,
because it is useful to do so. As such, this means that everything is a belief.
Which is good, from a persuasion standpoint. Because beliefs can be changed.

Beliefs and language

Belief is highly entangled with
language. If there is a word for something
then we believe it exists, as in the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. We
thus 'language reality into existence'.

This is one reason why people from different countries have difficulty
understanding one another, as the beliefs they hold are built into the language and the
culture.

Disbelief

When we believe in one thing, we will usually
disbelieve in anything that contradicts the primary belief. This can result
in us having one belief system and many disbelief systems. For example if a
person believes in one religion, they accept all the tenets of that religion.
They also disbelieve in all other religions, rejecting outright (and often
without any understanding of) the things that believers in others systems hold
to be absolute truths.

So what?

So understand that people's beliefs are what they are assuming to be true.
Challenge them. Reframe them. They can be changed.